Madagascar and myself had an interesting relationship to say the least. It feels like looking back there were a lot of things that could have classified my trip as bad, such as:

My watch breaking on my second dive of the trip.
Spending 6 days sick in bed and then coming down with a pretty gnarly ear infection.
Spending my final 3 weeks in Madagascar out of the water thanks to said ear infection.
Not being able to complete my advanced open water dive certification, again thanks to said ear infection.
Home sickness beyond belief.
Mosquito bites that turned into tropical ulcers. (If you don’t know what those are, I do not recommend googling them. They are not a pretty sight.)
My Birkenstocks walking home from the beach bar one night on someone else’s feet.

See, I told you. A lot of not great things. The weird part is, those are the things I talk about most now. All those things I just listed, now make for a pretty good story, but at the time it wasn’t amazing.

I talk about these things so frequently, but I think it’s so important to also mention that I did not have a bad trip. Was it a seamless and as smooth sailing as some of my previous trips? Definitely not, but it was still a good trip. I was forced way outside of my comfort zone and you know what people say, growth happens outside of your comfort zone. Because of the hard and challenging times in Madagascar I was forced to really look inward toward myself and learn how to turn around a bad situation and make the best with what I was presented with.

At the end of my trip I was voted “mariner of the week” for my willingness to participate in any activity I could and my desire to try and be as involved in the marine program as I could while always having a positive attitude about it, despite not being able to actually get in the water. Many of my fellow volunteers told me how impressed they were with me that I was so positive despite not being able to get in the water during my time in a marine conservation program.

Now I don’t say this to brag about being some amazing, positive, ray of sunshine. Quite the opposite actually. I bring this up because that positive attitude required constant effort. I had to wake up every day and make a conscious effort to pull myself out of bed each morning and decide to search for ways to fill my time in a productive manner.

Was I happy to not be able to finish my dive certification that I paid for? Nope.

Was I happy that I didn’t get to dive everyday? Nope.

Was I happy to be participating in only dry activities while the other volunteers talked about the amazing creatures they saw on their dives? Nope.

But, if dry activities were all that I could participate in then I was going to do them to my full capability and I was going to do them damn well! I would cover as many turtle watches as needed. I would work to catch up on missed data entry. I would help to start the large task of revamping the way that data from turtle surveys was recorded. I made the the most with what I was presented with, because you know what have happened if I didn’t?

I would have been a mess. My days would have felt isolated. My days would have felt like they were never going to end. I would have had uncontrollable anxiety. I would have been bad. My trip would have been bad.

So I made a choice, and did the work to make sure that my trip was a good one.

Like I said before, the bad situations make for some good stories, but the good moments are pretty good stories too and I think it is time to highlight some of them:

I wrote. A lot. All of my negative feelings were put into words in my journal. Every little victory I had in a day was put into words in my journal. Ideas and rough drafts for a lot of my recent blog posts were put in my journal. I get to look back on every bit of my trip whenever I want, all the good and all the bad.
Remember those Birkenstocks that walked off at the beach bar? I can’t even be too mad about that because there was too much good that night. Why was I barefoot anyway? Because I was dancing in the rain, on the sand, under the stars with new friends. That night, I was too busy living in the moment to pay much attention to material things.
I helped to build a a health clinic in an area that was without one.
I hopped in the water with whale sharks, some of the coolest creatures I have ever seen.

I watched a humpback whale breech. I have had a lot of incredible ocean encounters, but that may top the list.

I snorkeled with sea turtles, they will always be my favorite.
I met some amazing people. Personally, I think that the people you meet is the best part of travel and I tend to be reminded of this time and time again.

I saw the ocean from new places. The ocean and its beaches are different everywhere you go and I love seeing them in all their beauty.

I spent nights sitting on beaches, staring at the sky. No electricity leads to a pretty incredible night sky. There is something so peaceful about staring up at shooting stars and the Milky Way while listening to the waves.

So you see, I wasn’t all bad. It was pretty incredible really. Beautiful places, with beautiful new people, while finding new beauty and strength in myself. Thank you Madagascar. In some crazy twisted way, you really helped me find a little piece of self confidence and self reliance that I needed to find.

More Madagascar posts, here.

Madagascar: The Bad and the Good